A-List: Top Five Contenders for Oscars 2016
By J. Don Birnam
March 5, 2015
BoxOfficeProphets.com
This column may very well be called “Top Five Movies We Know Will Not Be at The Oscars in 2016.” As we know by now, having the “Oscar bait” label affixed to your movie is like the mark of death. Simply ask Angeline Jolie’s Unbroken or Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar. Their status as highly regarded and anticipated potential Oscar movies arguably hurt their chances - the expectations were too high to begin with.
To get a seat at the table, you essentially have to pretend you don’t want to be there - or, as another Oscarologist has put it, you have to sneak past the Alien quietly. Release quietly somehow, make a splash. Don’t build anticipation beforehand. This is perhaps why some strategists opt for the “super late release” strategy like American Sniper and Selma last year, but the problem with that approach is that there is not enough time for a movie to be thoroughly vetted so that “they” feel comfortable voting for it. It’s a hard balancing act.
Another reason is that critics, thumbing their nose at the Oscars as they do, smell blood when a movie poses as an Oscar contender. They really dislike that and, despite Boyhood’s ultimate loss, it is very hard to get into the Oscar race today without significant critical support. Yes, movies like American Sniper or Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (both of which received lukewarm or devastating receptions from the critics), can every once in a while get in. But you’re not going to win, and getting in will be hard. So, to please that first gatekeeper into the Oscar Promised Land with how the race works today, you have to please the critics. (The irony!)
This does beg the question: whose fault is it that a movie gets that mark of death “Oscar contender” on it? Well, it’s obviously the prognosticators fault in part. Sure, the studios know what they’re doing and market movies as Oscar contenders. But prognosticators, hungry for stories and predictions to pour over, will look at the names of the players involved in a movie (i.e., Angelina Jolie, Christopher Nolan), or the topic (World War II, saving the world, etc.), and will label those movies as Oscar bait, perhaps against the filmmakers’ wishes, setting them up for failure as it were.
It’s a cruel world. That’s show biz, folks.
So with that intro aside, the rules for this one are simple. If it is currently slated for a release in 2015, it is fair game as a potential Oscar contender. Part of the difficulty in this, of course, is that movies slip all the time. A prediction about it 10 months away from nominations is like a monkey throwing darts at the wall.
Honestly the fun thing about this exercise is that there is a lot of potentially great movies to look forward to. And that’s just of what we know now. Surprises are inevitable and welcome, and it’s always fun to see it all start to develop.
There are many runners-up that could well land acting nominations and wins for their stars, even if they don’t seem strong Best Picture contenders. The beloved-Sundance release Brooklyn, featuring Saoirse Ronan as an Irish immigrant faced with complicated choices, could well be this year’s Whiplash. The anticipated Freeheld, featuring the latest Best Actress winner Julianne Moore as a police officer who fights the decision of a New Jersey town to transfer her pension benefits to her domestic partner as she becomes terminally ill, could return Moore to the Dolby next year - and not as a presenter. Meryl Streep could also earn a ridiculous 20th nomination for her small role in Suffragette, a movie chronicling the efforts of women in Britain to secure the vote. Or Joy, David O. Rusell’s newest collaboration with Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, and Robert De Niro, could find a place in the final 10 given its interesting story about a single mother struggling to make ends meet. But with a planned release date of December 25th, one wonders if they’ve learned anything.
What’s that, you say, all those movies are about women, and those rarely make the cut? That’s right, and that’s why, fret not, the top five contenders are a bit more male-centric.
5) Irrational Man (Woody Allen)
Woody Allen’s movies are either wholly embraced or entirely rejected by the Academy, so it’s very hard to predict sight unseen what will happen. But his latest entry, a mystery-comedy starring Joaquin Phoenix as a professor who falls in love with his student, played by Emma Stone, sounds enticing. Both are recent Oscar nominees, and the Academy does love Woody even after all these years.
4) Carol (Todd Haynes)
Julianne Moore, who arguably deserved the Oscar for her magnificent turn in Todd Haynes’s Far From Heaven, finally won. But is it now Haynes’ turn? His next film, starring recent winner Cate Blanchett and Oscar nominee Rooney Mara, is based on a novel by Patricia Highsmith. It features Mara as a starry-eyed young store clerk in New York in the 1950s falling in love with an older, married woman, played by Blanchett. Blanchett has already wowed us as the target of somewhat unwelcome lesbian attention a few years back with Notes on a Scandal, and the names associated with this film have “Oscars” written all over them.
3) The Hateful Eight (Quentin Tarantino)
Tarantino. The Weinstein Company. Need I say more? I honestly don’t even know exactly what this movie is about, except I know that The Weinstein Company has its hands on it for a November release (and likely a world premiere at a fall film festival), and that’s really all you need to know. Quentin has won writing Oscars of course, but you know he’s aiming higher, and his last two movies have been Best Picture nominees. Harvey Weinstein, meanwhile, has found himself an Oscars outsider after back-to-back Best Picture wins for The King’s Speech and The Artist. His LGBT-themed Philomena and The Imitation Game won’t be exactly remembered as awards juggernauts. Tarantino’s eighth movie stars past nominees Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Dern, and Demian Bichir, as well as Channing Tatum. I think it’s also a Western - but it doesn’t really matter. If it’s good, it will be there.
2) St. James Place (Steven Spielberg)
After coming oh-so-close to a third Best Director award for Lincoln, the master, Steven Spielberg, is back. With a script penned by the Coen Brothers (who also penned Unbroken, to be fair), and starring perennial Spielberg favorite Tom Hanks, this movie is based on a real-life story of a Cold War spy-thriller-like episode involving a professor, a kidnapped VIP, and other such adventurous topics. The November release date screams Oscar bait, and you can also expect to see it take a bow at the fall festivals if the people behind the movie think they have a serious contender in their hands.
1. The Revenant (Alejandro González Iñárritu)
Back-to-back Best Directors wins are rare (it’s happened, but it’s been a very long time). So to place Alejandro González Iñárritu’s next movie this high on the list seems like a fool’s pick. But it stars Leonardo DiCaprio (and you know he of all people is hoping Iñárritu finishes the movie in time as he’s still looking for that elusive Oscar), is set in the late 19th Century in Wyoming and tells the story of a man who seeks revenge against the men who leave him to die after he is attacked by a bear. So it has the big names, the technical elements, and potentially the excitement. Right now it’s slated for a December 25th release, which would likely doom its chances, but if the makers can get it done earlier, we may just be seeing Iñárritu back at the Dolby next February.